Lake Whatcom Reconveyance Postponed

It’s ironic, after so many years arguing with opponents of growth management, to listen to park proponents commit the same error.  Developers usually seized on the GMA goal to plan for growth, and ignored the fact this was just one of numerous and often contradictory goals, and needed to be understood in a way consistent with the Act’s declared purpose.

Those diverse goals (planning for growth, creating parks, etc.) are of secondary concern and subordinate to the Act’s purpose: Preserving rural character and protecting resource lands in order to sustain the industries that rely on them.

In headlong pursuit of the largely illusory promise of protecting Bellingham’s drinking water by banning forestry in the strictly regulated commercial forest around the lake, would be environmentalists are weakening the protection now afforded by the ban on development, including parks, contained in CF zoning.

It is unlikely the effort will survive legal review.  But it is sad to witness probably well intentioned individuals abuse the Act with the same expediency normally favored by their usual opponents.

How many that testified last week were familiar with the business end of an ax?  Where were the real spokesmen for the timber industry that our politicians purport to support?  Just how much of a wage base will be eroded by removal of 25% of 8800 acres from the Lake Whatcom Watershed?  Will a commitment to the renewal of old-growth forest be in the best long term interests of water quality?  Better than continued clear-cutting?

There should be an accounting of the costs and benefits of the Reconveyance.  But that information has been sadly lacking in the public process over the past five years that the Reconveyance has been under active consideration, drowned by rhetoric about water quality on one side and bumptious theorizing about “jobs” that few testifiers and Councilmembers, former and current, have any hands-on experience in creating.

Yes, the DNR was deified, even by the property rights cabal that generally disparages state bureaucracies.  Just how successful has the DNR been in regulating forest practices in the Watershed?  Where is the measure of the success of their stewardship when compared to the continuing degradation of the City’s water supply?

DNR is in the business of promoting clear cutting on public land.  Just like the Washington State Gambling Commission is in the business of promoting Safe Gambling in drinking establishments.  I have crossed swords with the latter on two occasions;  once with their whitewashing of the theft of gambling monies from a local bingo operation and another with their tacit support of the abominable Nooksack Casino in Lynden. 

Government bureaucracies are, first and foremost, dedicated to the perpetuation of their existence and the approbation of their public charge.  The true interests of the public are secondary.  The promise of public money trumps clean living and it trumps clean water.  You can bet your chainsaw that the DNR will continue to be supported and coddled by timber interests, even when both make mistakes that run afoul of the public’s interest.

Speaking of love fests, it is a source of great personal satisfaction that the Whatcom County Planning Commission is also becoming deified after years of vilification by the property rights crowd.  Why was the Reconveyance not reviewed by the Commission five years ago?  I suggest it is because the former Planning Commission would have green-lighted the Reconveyance after extensive hearings and review, while there is not a snowball’s chance in Hell that the current Reconveyance will receive the Commission’s approval.

In short, politics.  And it was politics that was on full display at last week’s Council meeting, with precious little hard information.  Exceptions were the testimony of Karen Brown (access to the proposed Park), David Wall (Science) and Mike Lilliquist (costs of water treatment by the City of Bellingham).

If you are doing a fast forward of the 4 hour meeting, the testimony of these folks deserves special consideration.

I doubt it’s has anything to do with 11th hour opposition, and that clouded title as related to a whole lot of reconveyed school trust lands, as written into the local Organic Act of 1853.

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What was the North West Ordinance? Is 8th grade really that confusing?

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Art. 3. Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged…

The private corporation, stealing public school lands, and the sell off by a School Board with tunnel vision?

You have to wonder how do these people get into office, as also defined in McCleary v. State, and Montana v. Montana, where the Kindergarden Class takes down the Montana Supreme Court, evidently education funding is more important that a park, for the Council ‘s Clown Show, starring Pete Kremen, who couldn’t make it in Radio, so he went into politics.

9-0, when your’s truly were left behind!

“In 2003, parents of Montana schoolchildren filed a federal suit, claiming that PPL’s facilities were on riverbeds that were state owned and part of Montana’s school trust lands.”

A 2009 report by DOE indicated that DNR forest practices are not in compliance with Clean Water Act requirements. It painted a pretty bleak picture of a dysfunctional agency that failed to engage in monitoring and compliance efforts, failed to rely upon best available science, and was likely to suffer from even greater budget cuts in the future. I am not sure why this never gets mentioned.

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Not in compliance?
Like the Queen’s newest gig, citing US v Nixon’s executive privilege now in the local High Court, not in compliance, what a concept and will Gerry Ford pardon our Queen too?

SECTION 5 GENERAL DUTIES OF GOVERNOR. The governor may require information in writing from the officers of the state upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and shall see that the laws are faithfully executed.

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